Background: As the importance of the esthetic function of teeth increases, the use of esthetic restoration materials and whitening treatment are increasing. The purpose of this study was to investigate the color change of esthetic restoration materials upon using staining and whitening toothpaste. Methods: Light curing (LC) packable composite resin, LC flowable resin, LC glass ionomer (GI), and self-curing GI specimens were colored in coffee or curry for three hours a day for seven days. After that, regular toothpaste, whitening toothpaste containing hydrogen peroxide, and whitening toothpaste containing activated charcoal were applied for three minutes three times a day for two weeks. Luminosity (L), chromaticity a (a), and chromaticity b (b) were measured using a spectrophotometer once a week. Results: In the coffee-colored group, the change in L2 *a2 *b2 (E2 ) with time was significant (p=0.004), there was no difference for different toothpaste types (p=0.646), and there was significant difference (p＜0.001) for different esthetic restorative materials.The change of E2 in the curry-colored group was significant only for different esthetic restorative materials (p＜0.001). In the coffee-colored group, the L, a, and b values of the light-curing GI showed greater change than other materials after staining and one week after whitening, turning dark, red, and yellow. In the curry-colored group, L did not differ for different materials and times, and a and b showed the greatest difference in light-curing GI after staining and one and two weeks after whitening. Conclusion The use of whitening toothpaste for two weeks was not different from the use of general toothpaste in the removal of staining or whitening. Since light-curing GI is the most vulnerable to coloration, it is recommended that coloring by food chromogen should be explained in advance, before using light-curing GI for teeth restoration.

Urban transit (bus and rail) operators, totaling nearly 700,000 persons, are one of the heaviest occupational groups in the United States (US). Little is known about occupational risk factors for weight gain and obesity and their interrelationship with health-related behaviors, particularly among female minority (African Americans and Hispanics) transit operators who are at greater risk for obesity. As a step towards developing successful obesity interventions among urban transit operators, this paper aims to present a new socioecological framework for studying working conditions, chronic strain, health-related behaviors, weight gain/obesity, and obesity disparity in diverse urban transit operators based on gender, race, and ethnicity. Our framework is a synthesis of several different theories and disciplines: the resource-work load model (work stress), occupational ergonomics, the theory of intersectionality, and worksite health promotion. The framework was developed utilizing an extensive literature review, results from our on-going research on obesity, input from focus groups conducted with Los Angeles transit operators as well as interviews and meetings with transit operator stakeholders (management, unions, and worksite transit wellness program), and ride-along observations. Our hypotheses highlighted in the framework (see Fig. 1) are that adverse working conditions, largely characterized as a combination of high demands and low resources, will increase the risk for weight gain/obesity among transit operators directly through chronic strain and hypothalamic dysfunction (hyper-and hypo-activations), and indirectly through health-related behaviors and injuries/chronic severe pain. We also hypothesize that the observed increase in adiposity among female minority operators is due to their greater exposure to adverse occupational and non-occupational conditions that reflect their intersecting social identities of lower social class and being a minority woman in the US. Our proposed framework could greatly facilitate future transit worksite obesity studies by clarifying the complex and important roles of adverse working conditions in the etiology of weight gain/obesity and obesity disparity among transit operators and other working populations.
Adiposity ; Continental Population Groups* ; Female ; Focus Groups ; Health Behavior ; Health Promotion ; Human Engineering ; Humans ; Obesity* ; Occupational Groups ; Risk Factors ; Social Class ; Social Identification ; United States ; Weight Gain ; Workplace

Purpose: The effects of aerobic exercise training on soleus muscle morphology, mitochondria-mediated apoptotic signaling, and atrophy/hypertrophy signaling in ovariectomized rat skeletal muscle were investigated. Methods: Female Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into control (CON), ovariectomy (OVX), and ovariectomy plus exercise (OVX+EX) groups. After ovarian excision, exercise training was performed using a rat treadmill at 20 m/min, 50 min/day, 5 days/week for 12 weeks. Protein levels of mitochondria-mediated apoptotic signaling and atrophy/hypertrophy signaling in the skeletal muscle (soleus) were examined through western immunoblot analysis. Results: The number of myocytes and myocyte cross-sectional area (CSA) were increased and the extramyocyte space was decreased in the OVX group compared to those in the CON group. However, aerobic exercise training significantly increased myocyte CSA and decreased extramyocyte space in the OVX+EX group compared to those in the OVX group. The protein levels of proapoptotic signaling and muscle atrophy signaling were significantly increased, whereas the protein levels of muscle hypertrophy signaling were significantly decreased in the OVX group compared to that in the CON group. Aerobic exercise training significantly decreased the protein levels of proapoptotic signaling and increased the protein level of antiapoptotic protein in the OVX+EX group compared to that in the OVX group. Aerobic exercise training significantly increased the protein levels of hypertrophy signaling and decreased protein levels of atrophy signaling in the OVX+EX group compared to those in the OVX group. Conclusions Treadmill exercise improved estrogen deficiency-induced impairment in skeletal muscle remodeling, mitochondria-mediated apoptotic signaling, and atrophy/hypertrophy signaling in skeletal muscle.

This paper describes a community effort to improve earlier versions of the full-text corpus of Genomics & Informatics by semi-automatically detecting and correcting PDF-to-text conversion errors and optical character recognition errors during the first hackathon of Genomics & Informatics Annotation Hackathon (GIAH) event. Extracting text from multi-column biomedical documents such as Genomics & Informatics is known to be notoriously difficult. The hackathon was piloted as part of a coding competition of the ELTEC College of Engineering at Ewha Womans University in order to enable researchers and students to create or annotate their own versions of the Genomics & Informatics corpus, to gain and create knowledge about corpus linguistics, and simultaneously to acquire tangible and transferable skills. The proposed projects during the hackathon harness an internal database containing different versions of the corpus and annotations.

This paper describes a community effort to improve earlier versions of the full-text corpus of Genomics & Informatics by semi-automatically detecting and correcting PDF-to-text conversion errors and optical character recognition errors during the first hackathon of Genomics & Informatics Annotation Hackathon (GIAH) event. Extracting text from multi-column biomedical documents such as Genomics & Informatics is known to be notoriously difficult. The hackathon was piloted as part of a coding competition of the ELTEC College of Engineering at Ewha Womans University in order to enable researchers and students to create or annotate their own versions of the Genomics & Informatics corpus, to gain and create knowledge about corpus linguistics, and simultaneously to acquire tangible and transferable skills. The proposed projects during the hackathon harness an internal database containing different versions of the corpus and annotations.